Achilles (Mythological character) -- Poetry; Classical literature; Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War -- Poetry
Thus joyful Troy maintain’d the watch of night;
While fear, pale comrade of inglorious flight,[199]
And heaven-bred horror, on the Grecian part,
Sat on each face, and sadden’d every heart.
As from its cloudy dungeon issuing forth,
A double tempest of the west and north
Swells o’er the sea, from Thracia’s frozen shore,
Heaps waves on waves, and bids the Ægean roar:
This way and that the boiling deeps are toss’d:
Such various passions urged the troubled host,
Great Agamemnon grieved above the rest;
Superior sorrows swell’d his royal breast;
Himself his orders to the heralds bears,
To bid to council all the Grecian peers,
But bid in whispers: these surround their chief,
In solemn sadness and majestic grief.
The king amidst the mournful circle rose:
Down his wan cheek a briny torrent flows.
So silent fountains, from a rock’s tall head,
In sable streams soft-trickling waters shed.
With more than vulgar grief he stood oppress’d;
Words, mix’d with sighs, thus bursting from his breast:
“Ye sons of Greece! partake your leader’s care;
Fellows in arms and princes of the war!
Of partial Jove too justly we complain,
And heavenly oracles believed in vain.
A safe return was promised to our toils,
With conquest honour’d and enrich’d with spoils:
Now shameful flight alone can save the host;
Our wealth, our people, and our glory lost.
So Jove decrees, almighty lord of all!
Jove, at whose nod whole empires rise or fall,
Who shakes the feeble props of human trust,
And towers and armies humbles to the dust.
Haste then, for ever quit these fatal fields,
Haste to the joys our native country yields;
Spread all your canvas, all your oars employ,
Nor hope the fall of heaven-defended Troy.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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